The United Farm Workers of America was born in an era of
protest and civil disobedience that began when Mrs. Rosa
Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama.The prolonged civil rights controversy of the sixties
introduced Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to the cause
of ethnic minorities. Bobby Kennedy went into the urban
slums and into rural Appalachia.He was moved by what he
saw, and it was this concern that led him to La Causa. The U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Migratory Labor began a series
of hearings that gave voice to the plight of seasonal farm
workers; Ed Murrow produced the TV documentary Harvest
of Shame, and once more the nation was shocked by the
living and working conditions down on the farm.Organized
labor, liberal church groups, and Mexican American organizations like cso began to pressure Congress to let the Bracero
program die when Public Law 78 expired December 31,
1963.

As expected, the farmers argued labor shortages required
the extension of the law authorizing Braceros, but tough old
Al Green summed up the prevailing sentiment: "There is no
job Americans won't do if they get paid.... How many Braceros do you find working as roofers? What is worse than
working with that hot tar stinking in your face all day? But
you find Americans doing that work because they get paid
well."

While the political climate was improving for farm workers, they were not in a position to capitalize on it. Chavez
told Los Angeles Times reporter Ruben Salazar,

Let's face it, most agriculture workers are in the lowest
educational levels and don't even understand what unioniza

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